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    TiMidity -- Experimental MIDI to WAVE converter
    Copyright (C) 1995 Tuukka Toivonen <titoivon@snakemail.hut.fi>

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   Frequently Asked Questions with answers:

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Q: I tried playing a MIDI file I got off the Net but all I got was a
   dozen warnings saying "No instrument mapped to tone bank 0, program
   xx - this instrument will not be heard". What's wrong?

A: The General MIDI standard specifies 128 melodic instruments and
   some sixty percussion sounds. If you wish to play arbitrary General
   MIDI files, you'll need to get more patch files.

   There's a program called Midia for SGI's, which also plays MIDI
   files and has a lot more bells and whistles than TiMidity. It uses
   GUS-compatible patches, too -- so you can get the 8 MB set at
   ftp://archive.cs.umbc.edu/pub/midia for pretty good GM compatibility.

   There are also many excellent patches on the Ultrasound FTP sites.
   I can recommend Dustin McCartney's collections gsdrum*.zip and
   wow*.zip in the "[.../]sound/patches/files" directory. The huge
   ProPats series (pp3-*.zip) contains good patches as well. General
   MIDI files can also be found on these sites.

   This site list is from the GUS FAQ:

>                        FTP Sites                     Archive Directories
>                        ---------                     -------------------
> Main N.American Site:  archive.orst.edu              pub/packages/gravis
>                        wuarchive.wustl.edu           systems/ibmpc/ultrasound
> Main Asian Site:       nctuccca.edu.tw               PC/ultrasound
> Main European Site:    src.doc.ic.ac.uk              packages/ultrasound
> Main Australian Site:  ftp.mpx.com.au                /ultrasound/general
>                                                      /ultrasound/submit
> South African Site:    ftp.sun.ac.za                 /pub/packages/ultrasound
> Submissions:           archive.epas.utoronto.ca      pub/pc/ultrasound/submit
> Newly Validated Files: archive.epas.utoronto.ca      pub/pc/ultrasound
> 
> Mirrors:               garbo.uwasa.fi                mirror/ultrasound
>                        ftp.st.nepean.uws.edu.au      pc/ultrasound
>                        ftp.luth.se                   pub/msdos/ultrasound

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Q: This MIDI file used to work fine with version 0.0001z but now it
   suddenly sounds weird. What happened?

A: Something changed in the way TiMidity interprets MIDI or patch
   parameters. If you think it changed for the worse, try to find out
   which patch/MIDI file is causing problems, exactly what is different,
   and if possible, why :) Also, try another MIDI player or device to
   hear how the file is played correctly. Then mail me.

   If you just upgraded from 0.2c or lower, note that you'll need to
   update your configuration files. See "gravis.cfg" for an example.

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Q: I'm playing Fantasie Impromptu in the background. When I run Netscape,
   the sound gets choppy and it takes ten minutes to load. What can I do?

A: There's a thousand things you can do! Here are some that come to mind:

   - Use a lower sampling rate.

   - Use mono output. This can improve performance by 10-30%.
     (Using 8-bit instead of 16-bit output makes little difference.)

   - Use a smaller number of simultaneous voices.

   - Make sure you compiled with FAST_DECAY and PRECALC_LOOPS enabled
     in config.h

   - If you don't have hardware to compute sines, recompile with
     LOOKUP_SINE enabled in config.h

   - Recompile with LOOKUP_HACK enabled in config.h.

   - Recompile with LINEAR_INTERPOLATION disabled in config.h.

   - Recompile with DANGEROUS_RENICE enabled in config.h, and make
     TiMidity setuid root. This will help only if you frequently play
     music while other processes are running.

   - Recompile with an Intel-optimized gcc for a 5-15%
     performance increase.

   - Use "bag". 

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Q: I made TiMidity setuid root. Starting Netscape now takes *twenty*
   minutes! 

A: Try Lynx...

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Q: Can TiMidity be ported to MS-DOS?

A: Sure, go ahead. You can get gcc for MS-DOS, so you'll just need to
   write a MSDOS_AU.C, containing low-level code to drive your sound
   card.

   But check out Cubic Player first -- it's an amazing program. It plays
   mods, s3m's, and most related formats, and of course MIDI files. Uses
   GUS patches. Has Wrfel Mode :) I think it's on ftp.cdrom.com, somewhere
   near a "demos" directory.

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Q: I can't reach the WWW page. Is the URL okay?

A: www.hut.fi is a bit confused about its role on the Internet. Please try
   again later if your http requests seem to frighten it. The source is also
   available at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/Linux/apps/sound/players/ although not
   every release gets there.

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